A short concise completely accurate one hundred percent faithful and mostly true history of Pickerelville
As told by Hipshot McGraw, the marshal of that fair city afore the ice melted and the whole thing sank into the lake
Perfecting Equilibrium Volume Four, Issue 22
I’m an alligator, I’m a mama-papa coming for you
I’m a space invader, I’ll be a rock ‘n’ rollin’ bitch for you
Keep your mouth shut, you’re squawking like a pink monkey bird
And I’m busting up my brains for the words
Keep your ‘lectric eye on me, babe
Put your ray gun to my head
Press your space face close to mine, love
Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah
The Sunday Reader, Nov 9, 2025
Editor’s Note: Last week we discussed how I set out to write something fantastical, magical, a great American Love in the Time of Cholera. When I was finished, what I had wasn’t fantastical. Or magical. Or realistic. Or a novel, even.
What I had was Hipshot McGraw. And now you can meet him:
Now killing Jack Baron was understandable - even proper, maybe - but setting that entire tavern adrift filled with drunks so mad they just started ordering doubles when they realized they was drifting across Lake Huron - well, I say that was extreme.
It was just luck that I found them: whether good luck or bad, I won’t say. I’d been out all night with a pig-sticker looking to put an end to that damn haunt what kept swimming around people’s basements, ruining the fishing - but that’s another story, told in its proper time.
Anyway, me and the deputy are sailing home to Pickerelville when we sees this light off in the distance. Now this is spring on the great lake, well after midnight. There ain’t no lights in the middle of the lake, excepting Pickerelville, and we’d be rolling up our streets soon enough for summer.
It was sort of in the direction we were heading anyway, so we tighten up the sail a little bit and head over to see what was up. And up it comes over the horizon, all red lights and cheap piano music, the usual couple of fires going on the upper floors, the usual folks putting them out, and the usual hores hanging half-naked out the windows trying to drum up business with the usual collection of drunks who were ignoring them on the street below.
Course the street were a bit shorter than usual.
Now none of this makes no sense, unless you’ve been to Pickerelville, and you haven’t, being as young as you are. So I guess I’m gonna have to explain about Pickerelville, or talking to you is going to be just so much spitting in the wind.
Now the great lakes are like sweetwater oceans, and if you sail out in the middle there’s nothing but water on every horizon. And beneath the watery roof your ship sits on swims every manner of fish, from minnows the size of your little finger to the great sturgeon what are the largest things in the lake, excepting that damn haunt.
Anyhow, folks fished the lakes just like they fish the oceans, with fishing villages and fleets and harbors. We even had killer gales and shipwrecks and sailors’ widows and graveyards with only headstones and no bodies, which had their own resting place with the fish in their dark kingdom.
Course there is one sort of large difference between the lakes and the real ocean. The real ocean don’t freeze over. Now at first folks just tried to lay in enough food to lay over the winter, but then some knucklehead Yankees showed up, and you know how they is. They pitched right in and fished all summer, but they got mighty restive when they ice set in.
Fish is still down there, they kept saying. Fish don’t care what happens up here. They said it over and over, like in those damn church services they held what went on all day Sunday. Just wore us out after a while.
Worst part was, turned out they was right. They set out one clear day, and we all went with them - what the hell else was there to do? Used to get so bored in the winter we’d throw buckets of water on each other and bet who’d freeze last. Mostly I won, but it wasn’t as much fun as all that, cause then I’d have to drag the rest of them over to the fire and thaw them out, and then they’d drink most of my winnings. Claimed they was chilled. Course one time I got tired of Stinkfoot Mulroon’s welching and left him in the corner till he thawed out on his own the next spring. He was pretty riled, especially when he found out we’d been using him as a coat rack. Specially when we took to calling him Hatrack Mulroon, which he said was an affront to his dignity.
Course that’s a different story, told in its proper time.
Anyway, we all follows the Yankee’s out on the ice. We walked out a couple of miles to a little spot off a point where a little bar on the bottom jumbled up the bait, making them easy pickings for the pickerel, which made them easy pickings for us. Course that was in the summer. Now there was three feet of ice protecting the pickerel from us.
So the Yankees start in with some big axes chopping holes in the ice, and we laid in like a house on fire. The Yankees thought we were being friendly, but hell, we was just cold. Soon enough we had a whole bout the size of a house, and the Yankees commenced to fishing.
Now the first question was bait, and we was just about to start asking where they intended on getting some when they whips out a net weighted down with fishing sinkers and start tossing it in the water. Came up with a mess of bait and a few pickerel. We wanted to use the net after that, but the Yankees said it wasn’t sporting. Bunch of stuck-up killjoys, if you’re asking me. Anyhow, we baited up and got at it.
And damn if them Yankees weren’t right. Sure the fishing was slow, but it was steady, and it beat messing with Hatrack Mulroon, who’d been pressed into service as a bar stool that winter after the short and unfortunate discussion of Haymaker Cartwright’s mom left us with a sudden shortage of same. Soon enough we had a neat little stack of pickerel on the ice, where they conveniently froze for storage after two shakes of the tail.
Course you know what happened next. Everyone started complaining about how slow the fishing was and arguing over how to speed it up. Old Stump Clark - what got his name after Hatrack mistook his leg for a stump and planted an axe in it, which caused some hard feelings - started yelling and spitting so hard he forgot he had a fish on.
When he remembered, he couldn’t believe his eyes. The whole school was playing follow the leader right behind his fish. Seems the cold water made them stupid. Anyway, we knew a chance when we saw it. Couple of us ran back and got us some frog spears and long handles. We had Stump pull his fish over to one side of the hole, and we commenced to bailing fish on the other. In one day we put up as much fish as an average boat did all summer.
The Yankees said sticking the fish wasn’t sporting, but they shut up quick enough when we offered to throw them in the hole so they could referee.
Took us half the night to haul the fish in, and then we had to celebrate, so naturally we slept late the next day. It was the crack of noon afore we got out on the ice, and then Seven-fingers Haine found the hole by falling in. We pulled him out, of course, but he was froze stiff.
“He’d go a long way to alleviating the terrible bar stool shortage,” said Stump. “Too bad the saloon ain’t out here.”
That Stump was a genius, which was a good thing, seeing how ugly he was. Quick as you can say set em up, we’d hitched the horse and dragged the saloon out to the hole, which made the barkeep really mad until he realized that was where all his customers were. Course once the barkeep had figured out the business angle, so did the hores, and the whole crowd showed up towing their cathouse a few days later. Weren’t no business left in town, since we were all out here.
Anyway, me and the boys got together and figured that if we had ourselves a saloon and a cathouse, we might as well get us a mayor and make it a set. So we set to some serious drinking and thinking to come up with a name for our fair city. Stumpville and Cartwrightville and even Hainetown got one vote each, though I never have figured that last one out. Anyway, we ran out of money after three bottles of bourbon and one of rye, and since the barkeep said we couldn’t pay in fish, we settled on Pickerelville and went to bed.
Who’d we elect mayor? Hatrack, of course. On account of his dignity.
Anyhow, it was all much too good to last, what with all the money we started making. Soon enough we had bad guys in town - I mean besides us - and we needed a marshal.
Of course they picked me, on account of the same reason they called me Hipshot - I got a bad temper and a bad habit of shooting folk before an argument really got going, just in case they had any intention of getting offensive at some point down the line.
Anyhow, we was a pretty good sized town Christmas of 1887 when Jack Baron walked out of a little blizzard and into our lives. He walked into the saloon and asked the barkeep if it was for sale, and the barkeep said no, and they commenced to arguing, and the next morning we found the barkeep face down in our pickerel hole and Baron behind the bar. So there wasn’t much we could do about it, because we sure as hell weren’t ready to give up drinking.
After about two weeks Baron decided he wanted to be mayor. Hatrack had gotten hisself froze again - fell in the damn fishing hole and scared six fish to death - so it wasn’t much of a coup. Baron knew we’d be mad if he did something permanent to old Hatrack, but he was a clever sort. He made up a big sign that said “Welcome to Pickerelville,” stuck it in old Hatrack’s hands, and stuck old Hatrack in the middle of the town square, between the saloon and the cathouse.
Now none of us could rightly argue with that - even we had civic pride. Why Hatrack was so proud he insisted on freezing hisself the next winter with the sign in his hands. Course he just couldn’t wait until it was proper winter. He started freezing hisself as soon as we had a good frost. So you can guess what happened. He’d freeze, then thaw half out the next day, kind of wilting in the sun, then freeze all bent over like that. Made a mockery out of our sign. We argued all winter over whether it was worth the trouble to thaw him out and refreeze him proper, but we never did seem to get around to it.
By the second year, it was traditional.
Anyway, old Jack and I didn’t hit it off. He was too smart to take me on after he saw me shoot a couple of guys who were thinking about running a crooked poker game. So he hired a couple of toughs to come up and take me out.
Didn’t work, though. I shot them while they were getting their luggage off the stage.
So Jack and I came to an understanding. He was very very nice to me, and I didn’t shoot him.
Besides, the rest of them would of made me take over the bar, which was more respectability and responsibility than I wanted.
Besides, old Jack was always cheating someone or roughing someone up, and he needed the marshal to keep folks from burning the whole town down. Between him slitting throats and me shooting people, soon enough we had dead bodies stacked all over the place. We had to have a graveyard, though lots of people muttered darkly that we was putting on airs. Throwing the bodies in the woods had been good enough for our fathers, they said - it ought to be good enough for us.
Course they shut up quick enough when we offered to let them drag the bodies 10 miles to the nearest woods.
So we built us a graveyard, right next to the saloon, where it was convenient. We’d just cut us a hole in the ice and chuck the deceased in it. Then we’d trace his name on the water, and it was so cold it would freeze just like that. Prettiest headstone you ever saw.
In fact some art curator from Chicago came up to look at them and got all excited. Said he was going to take some of them back to the museum. Nothing came of it, though: he fell for that old saw about asking Haymaker if he could visit his mom.
But I guess it was all for the best, since we buried him under one of those headstones he liked so much. We even drew some angels and stuff.
Course burying him didn’t work out as well as we hoped. No matter how much lead we put in his pockets, he kept popping up in our fishing holes, scaring the fish and getting in the way. We must have buried him a good 600 times afore the winter was over. Messed up the fishing something fierce.
In fact, the fishing stunk all winter, what with the haunt, the guy who wouldn’t stay buried and the green men what claimed they were from another planet popping up in the basement one after another.
Course that’s a different story, told in its proper time.
So you can imagine how outraged we were, the deputy and I, to see our three most cherished civic institutions - our saloon, our cathouse, and our famous graveyard - floating across Lake Huron.
“Why don’t we just make like we never saw them?” said the deputy. “Save us the trouble of dragging those heavy-ass things back on shore for the summer.”
The deputy always was a practical man. We were just about agreed when I remembered Jack owed both of us serious money. So we did our duty and saved our town.
Not for long, as it turned out. Course that’s a different story, told in it’s proper time.
Anyway, me and the deputy throws a rope around Hatrack, ties up along the graveyard and goes ashore. We marches into the saloon, where no one even notices we have somehow joined the party.
Finally, old Doc Smithers marches up. “Bout time you showed up, Hipshot. It’d be just like you to let us all drown.”
Well I could see he was looking for an argument, so quick as a wink I shot him three times in the leg. The gunplay got everyone’s attention, too, so not a shot was wasted.
“Listen up!” yelled the deputy. “You all are going to drown unless we can get this thing headed back to Pickerelville. We is going to have to put a windsock on top of this here building. The only way we can make a windsock is with silk - lots of silk. I am going to need all you womenfolk to take off your clothes and give us your underwear.”
The hores started heading for the rooms to change, but the deputy says “No time for modesty. You are all about to die.” So the hores just shrug - we’d all seen each other naked at one time or another anyway - and start stripping.
Now I am just about to point out to the deputy that it would be a lot easier and faster to get the spare sail off the boat when I realize - what am I thinking? I’m getting to see 35 women neked for free. So I keep my mouth shut and make a note to give the deputy a raise, first chance I get.
Anyhow, in about 35 seconds flat we’re in hog heaven - 35 neked women and a bar full of booze. And we might have forgotten all about our civic duty if a couple of my favorites hadn’t indicated how strenuously grateful they intended to be, once we’d saved them and were heroes.
So me and the deputy got to heroing. I snuck the spare sail up onto the roof, and the deputy tied all the bloomers and such together to make it look good. Then I commenced to towing with the boat and the deputy commenced to working the spare sail - not letting anyone up on the roof, so they all thought we really were using the bloomersail. And soon enough we were all right back where we belonged.
I walked into the bar, looking to collect my money and my deputy. It was the damnedest sight you ever saw - neked women and neked men and bottles everywhere.
“Hello, McGraw,” Jack yells from behind the special reinforced section of the bar he’d put up for my little visits.
Well, I could tell he was testy, so I put two slugs into the bar and one into this really fat guy on account of him neked was just about the most offensive thing I’d ever seen.
“I’ve come for my money, Jack,” I says, real conversational like.
“Safe’s on the bar, Mr. Marshall,” says Jack, real friendly like.
“Don’t you want to come out and count it?” I says.
“No, that’s just fine. I trust you, Mr. Marshall,” Jack yells from under the bar. He’d even had a little door built after I tried to get him with a ricochet one time.
So anyhow, I collect the safe and the deputy and the girls and head on home, and those girls were so damned grateful that they about killed us.
About dawn things slowed down a bit, and I got to thinking - just who was mad enough to cut half the town adrift?
Well, I was just commencing to some serious thinking when one of them hores made a move on me with mayhem in her eyes. I could see she and her crowd was looking to do me and the deputy some serious damage. So I makes a move for my gun, but for once in my life she had the drop on me, so . . . so the rest of that story is none of your damn business anyway.
So anyhow, I heads out to the scene of the crime several days later as soon as I recovered from my injuries. Well, any idiot could have seen right away what had happened. Somebody had combined an acid and a base along the line they wanted to carve in the ice, setting off a strong exothermic reaction as stronger bonds were formed than were broken in the reactants. If you mix aqueous solutions of an acid and a base, you get a rapid neutralization reaction what generally produces water, a salt and plenty of heat. For example, H2SO4 + 2NaOH = 2 H2O + Na2SO4, when you combine sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide, except it should be a double arrow instead of an equal sign, to emphasize two possible reactions.
Course that’s a different story, told in its proper time.
So I was looking at a pretty straight forward piece of deduction. All I had to do was figure out who would have understood enough science to know how to melt a big old hole in the ice - besides me, of course.
That was easy. The only one what knew diddly about science was Vlad Drago, our resident doctor and taxidermist what we called Vlad the Impaler for the nifty way he had with a fish spear. So I moseys down to his shop, shooting a couple of tramps on the way to teach them not to sleep in the gutter.
Anyhow, I walks into Vlad’s shop nice as you please, and quick as a cat put three slugs into this big old bear what reared up over me.
“That bear’s already dead and stuffed,” says Vlad.
“I can see that,” I told him. “I just don’t want my guns to get cold.”
“Anyway,” I says to him, seeing as how he was trying to change the subject, “I’m on to you, Vlad. I know it was you what promulgated the xenophobic reaction and used chemicals to set the center of our fair town adrift on the Great Lake.”
Well, what could he say? I had him dead in my sights.
“I had to do it, Hipshot, don’t you see that?” he says to me. “That bastard Baron tricked the aliens into asking Haymaker if they could visit his mom, and he killed the lot of them before any of us could restrain him. Now there’ll never be peace on earth.”
Now he did have a point, if what he said was true, and it did sound just like that rascal Jack. It would be just like him to slaughter an interstellar peace mission for a practical joke.
Now the greenmen had popped up in Seven-fingers Haine’s fishing hole about midwinter and asked to be taken to our leader, so of course he brought them to me.
So I asks them what’s the big idea messing up the fishing and did they know anything about that damn haunt what was also messing up the fishing. And they sticks this little thing in my ear what lets me understand every spoken language, which stood me in good stead some years later when I was god-emperor of the Cheyenne.
Course that’s a different story, told in its proper time.
So anyhow, the QrkQQnPf - that’s how they spelled it, anyway - tell me that they had developed a universal field theorem what explained the relationship between weak binding forces, strong binding forces and gravity. Consequently, they said they was able to build an anti-gravity machine, using electromagnets and some other assorted parts too obvious to be worth mentioning.
Anyhow, they figured out they could reverse the unit and create enough gravity to open up Einstein-Rosen worm holes through spacetime, and use them for interstellar travel by putting a slight spin on the whole deal, so they didn’t cross the event horizon.
They also had to be a mite careful about crossing the Schwarzschild radius and starting up a black hole in the middle of their ship barn.
This would be bad.
Anyhow, the whole thing is a crock, if you’re asking me. Way I see it, even if you did all that, you is still using an electromagnetical apparatus, so the whole deal would turn out to be a Reissner-Nordstrom hole and the electromagnetical tides would shred every atom in your body, which is almost as bad as getting locked in a shed with Haymaker Cartwright when he’s thinking about his mom.
Course that’s a different story, told in its proper time.
Point was, the QrkQQnPf had come here to teach the secret of universal peace, happiness and tolerance, which I thought was real pushy for a bunch of short green pencil-necked geeks with tentacles where their ears should be.
But there was no sense talking about it, since Haymaker had done a little piece-making of his own.
So anyway, the important thing was I had solved the crime - I had the perpetrator right in my sights, and he’d already confessed. So I shot old Vlad in the knee - just a bit - before he could think seriously about getting away. I told him he was under arrest, and that I would be back later to take him off to jail for setting the center of our fair city adrift on the Great Lake.
So, with that crime solved, I set off to visit old Jack to have one of our little chats, but I soon enough had a little reminder that even a mind like mine can occasionally forget minor little details, like the one about the QrkQQnPf needing more coolant for the new-clear reactor in their ship or the whole thing would overheat in a most spectacular fashion, which it did just as I was stepping into the saloon, melting all the ice on the Great Lake, parboiling every fish for 20 miles so that the grizzlies grew to the size of elephants eating the cooked trout what washed up on the shore until they got so big they couldn’t move and were wiped out by a tough but ambitious band of raccoons, and causing me and Haymaker Cartwright to have to spend 16 weeks afloating on a table with nothing but two barrels of whiskey and 6 hores, with everybody being real careful what - or more rightly who - they talked about.
Course that’s a different story, told in its proper time.